ATI Radeon HD 2X00 (2400,2600,2900) series owners thread

[arfster]

Ahh, and the other thing that puzzled me about the beta, the new dynamic contrast slider. This was invisible by default, and i couldn't get it working even after making it visible (DynamicContrast_NA=0).

In official 8.6 they are by default visible only for 4800 cards (perhaps they only work with those). Don't see anything else interesting in the INF, will have a test tomorrow if I have time.

[Wo0zy]

Official 8.6 is available now. Usual Place (http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=vista32/common-vista32)

Wo0zy

Edit: Sorry. Old news. There are a couple of fixes which seem interesting, at least to problems I've seen. 737-35065 for instance.

[daMaster]

As Arfster mentioned this can be done using the "color" brightness/contrast settings (not AVIVO). With my DVI HDTV, to get just about everything outputting 16-235 (including the desktop):

Set CCC "color" brightness/contrast to +31/73%, add UseBT601CSC=1 and for most software leave the AVIVO brightness/contrast set to default.


The only software I have that ignores this is PowerDVD Ultra (running in Vista). To make PDVD Ultra output 16-235, change the PDVD advanced video brightness/contrast to +19/-5 (when playing an HD-DVD or Blu-ray).

One final oddity is I found I needed to use an ATI HDMI dongle and an HDMI to DVI cable, instead of simply using a DVI to DVI cable.

Ok, I'm new to HTPCs and can't figure out for the life of me what settings to use to get the right video levels. Here's my setup:
- Windows Vista, with EVR as the renderer
- Radeon HD2600, Catalyst 8.3
- Rear projection CRT connected via component
- Desktop resolution = 1920x1080 @30Hz (1080i)
- All of my viewing is HD, MPEG2 or H264. I use MediaPortal as my front-end.

Am I correct in assuming my TV requires video levels (16-235)?

Here are my software settings:
- In CCC, I have contrast/brightness settings set to "Use application settings"
- I have UseBT601CSC=1 set in the registry
- For HD MPEG2 (720p/1080i TV broadcasts), I use Cyberlink PowerDVD 7 decoder -> EVR
- For HD H264 (720p/1080p x264 MKVs), I use CoreAVC YV12 (input & output levels set to "Autodetect") -> ffdshow RGB32HQ, YCbCr = BT.709, Contrast = Standard (16-235) -> EVR

I'm not 100% certain I'm doing things right and I haven't yet learned how to verify either. Would the above configuration give me 16-235 video levels for all my HD viewing? I'm really not interested in SD.

Thanks in advance!

[arfster]

Here are my software settings:
- In CCC, I have contrast/brightness settings set to "Use application settings"
- I have UseBT601CSC=1 set in the registry


Sets it to expand all SD


- For HD MPEG2 (720p/1080i TV broadcasts), I use Cyberlink PowerDVD 7 decoder -> EVR


HD = expanded by default


- For HD H264 (720p/1080p x264 MKVs), I use CoreAVC YV12 (input & output levels set to "Autodetect") -> ffdshow RGB32HQ, YCbCr = BT.709, Contrast = Standard (16-235) -> EVR


This is bypassing driver-based expansion (by doing the RGB conversion in ffdshow), but by setting standard you are actually expanding in ffdshow instead! Note the setting refers to input luma range, while it always outputs to 0-255. Thus if you tell it incoming is standard aka 16-235, it expands it, but if you set full range it maps 0-255 to 0-255, ie no change (this wording confuses the hell out of everyone).


Thus, you have everything set to expand to pc levels (0-255)


If you want 16-235, which almost certainly your TV willl, you have to:

a) set CCC video brightness to 16, contrast to 86
b) set ffdshow RGB32 output to full range.

[Luar Azul]

I have just tried 8.6 in windows XP and hardware acceleration is now berserk. videos encoded in x264 or VC1 that worked perfectly with 8.4 and 8.5 in MPC-HC now display corruption (green screens, image dissolving into big pixels). The exdeus patch makes no difference. Tried different things, nothing seems to work. Went back to 8.5, everything works fine again!! I still have the original Sapphire bios, could that be the problem?

Graphics Card Manufacturer Powered by ATI
Graphics Chipset ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO
Device ID 94C3
Vendor 1002

Subsystem ID E370
Subsystem Vendor ID 174B

BIOS Version 010.051.000.002
BIOS Part Number 113-B16905-X04
BIOS Date 2007/05/17

[leeperry]

yeah it's always a good idea to ask Sapphire for BIOS updates.

for some reason, they don't offer them on their website :(

I sent them an email again a few days ago, and they've sent me an even newer BIOS :D

ATi Bios version 010.073.000.004.0000000, the one they sent me 6 months ago was 010.060.000.000.0000000

maybe my randomly corrupted mouse pointer will be fixed........obviously the pointer hardware acceleration has always been fishy up to now...

[Rew452]

Installed Cat 8.6 last night seemed like a real improvement:
Fast sync on my Mits PJ
CCC loads very fast

But when I tried to play a BD disc in PDVD 7 or 8 if I got video at all it flashed in and out.
Tried WinDVD 9 played better but still flashed in and out.
Did not matter if AnydvdHD was enabled or not.

Anyone else having HD playback problems??? HdDVD seems to be alright
Cat 8.5 worked but took time to sync on pj as most other builds have been

Should also mention the same is true on my HP2207 main monitor and WinXp SP3

Thanks
Rew

P5E motherboard
E8400 3Ghz @3.8
Visiontek 3850 Pcie
4gb ram
WinXP SP3

[mule]

After installing 8.6 the playback of bluray and hd-dvd with powerdvd stopped working: No Video, just audio for a few seconds after start and afterwards the whole system crashes?!

Never had something similar with <= 8.5:eek:

TheMule!

[arfster]

Did a quick test of 8.6 (Vista32, Sapphire 2600xt). No problems the XP guys above are having, and as in the beta they've fixed dualmonitor switching issues of 8.4/8.5.

Still need usebt601csc=1 for SD levels, and vforceuvdvc1/vforceuvdh264=1 for dualmonitor acceleration.

[Mr.M]

Did a quick test of 8.6 (Vista32, Sapphire 2600xt). No problems the XP guys above are having, and as in the beta they've fixed dualmonitor switching issues of 8.4/8.5.

Still need usebt601csc=1 for SD levels, and vforceuvdvc1/vforceuvdh264=1 for dualmonitor acceleration.

So just to confirm, all hardware video acceleration is working as it should be in Vista?

I'm currently on the 8.3 driver without problems. I tend to be reluctant to upgrade, but I need the Bioshock fix in the newest drivers.

[leeperry]

I've installed the 8.6 and I really appreciate the fact that it doesn't reset the LUT each time I open CCC....this was very annoying!

and from what I vaguely remember, CCC.exe will shutdown if something else needs its memory "location" or something like that ?

maybe that's why it suicides itself sometimes :(

to get back on the BIOS updates...Sapphire has given me an update with the "ATi ATOMBIOS" v10.73 for my PCI-E HD2600, and it seems that the latest versions available for the 3XXX is 10.75 :
http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,com_joomlaboard/Itemid,34/func,showcat/catid,12/

the newer, the better :D

[miami_sin]

Nice job on pinning this down guys - I always figured it was something noncompliant about x264. However, this really shouldn't be tripping up the decoder/card, as they support h264, not just Bluray/HDDVD h264.

Anyone who wants to complain to cyberlink about the x264 acceleration issue, be sure to mention the reference frames >4 issue. Makes it far more likely their support staff will pass it on (because they won't understand it, and secondly because concrete info like that has more credibility).


Finally found that specific info in the big, big thread! :)
Thanks for that!

Now checked some backup files I have... And it's true, all above "Num ref frames = 4" doesn't work H/W accelerated!

The one film I have below this value opens and starts H/W accelated perfectly but is bucking very much (CPU at 10%, GPU at 12%).

Latest RegTweaks 1.4 are installed,
CCC is 8.5,
PDVD H.264 Codec version is 2.1.0828
Playing in MPC HC

Maybe anyone could help?

Here the film's info:

[ About file ]

Name: Film.1080p.HDDVDRip.x264.mkv
Date: 12/03/2008 07:14:58
Size: 11,273,022,570 bytes (10750.792 MB)

[ Generic infos ]

Play duration: 02:14:04 (8044.425 s)
Container type: matroska
Creation time: 12/03/2008 07:05:06 UTC
Number of streams: 3
Type of stream nr. 1: video (V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC)
Type of stream nr. 2: audio (A_AC3)
Type of stream nr. 3: audio (A_AC3)
Audio streams: 2
Muxing Application: libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1
Writing Application: mkvmerge v2.2.0 ('Turn It On Again') built on Mar 4 2008 12:58:26

[ Relevant data ]

Resolution: 1920 x 800
Width: multiple of 32
Height: multiple of 32

[ Video track ]

Codec ID: V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Resolution: 1920 x 800
Frame aspect ratio: 12:5 = 2.4
Pixel aspect ratio: 1:1 = 1
Display aspect ratio: 12:5 = 2.4
Framerate: 23.975986 fps

[ Audio track nr. 1 ]

Codec ID: A_AC3
Channels (container): 6
Sample rate: 48000 Hz
Mode: 3 front, 2 rear, 1 LFE

[ Audio track nr. 2 ]

Codec ID: A_AC3
Channels (container): 6
Sample rate: 48000 Hz
Mode: 3 front, 2 rear, 1 LFE

[ About H.264 encoding ]

User data: x264
User data: core 58
User data: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec
User data: Copyleft 2003-2008
User data: http://www.videolan.org/x264.html
User data: cabac=1
User data: ref=3
User data: deblock=1:-2:-1
User data: analyse=0x3:0x113
User data: me=umh
User data: subme=6
User data: me-prepass=0
User data: brdo=0
User data: mixed_ref=0
User data: me_range=12
User data: chroma_me=1
User data: trellis=1
User data: 8x8dct=1
User data: cqm=0
User data: deadzone=21,11
User data: chroma_qp_offset=0
User data: threads=6
User data: nr=0
User data: decimate=1
User data: mbaff=0
User data: bframes=16
User data: b_pyramid=1
User data: b_adapt=1
User data: b_bias=0
User data: direct=3
User data: wpredb=1
User data: bime=0
User data: keyint=250
User data: keyint_min=25
User data: scenecut=40(pre)
User data: rc=2pass
User data: bitrate=9927
User data: ratetol=1.0
User data: rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)'
User data: qcomp=1.00
User data: qpmin=10
User data: qpmax=51
User data: qpstep=4
User data: cplxblur=20.0
User data: qblur=0.5
User data: ip_ratio=1.40
User data: pb_ratio=1.30
User data: aq=1:0.5:13.0
SPS id: 0
Profile: High@L5.1
Num ref frames: 3
Chroma format idc: YUV 4:2:0
PPS id: 0 (SPS: 0)
Entropy coding type: CABAC
Weighted prediction: No
Weighted bipred idc: B slices - implicit weighted prediction
8x8dct: Yes

[ Profile compliancy ]

Profile to check: MTK PAL 6000
Resolution: 1920 x 800 > 720 x 576
Framerate: 23.975986 <> 25
Warning: If you need a more complete report, then click on "DRF analysis"

This report was created by AVInaptic (18-11-2007) on 19 giu 2008, h 20:37:58

[HT Slider]

Ok, I'm new to HTPCs and can't figure out for the life of me what settings to use to get the right video levels. Here's my setup:
- Windows Vista, with EVR as the renderer
- Radeon HD2600, Catalyst 8.3
- Rear projection CRT connected via component
- Desktop resolution = 1920x1080 @30Hz (1080i)
- All of my viewing is HD, MPEG2 or H264. I use MediaPortal as my front-end.

Am I correct in assuming my TV requires video levels (16-235)?

Unless your TV has a specific setting you can change to enable "full range RGB" (0-255), it does require video levels.

Since you are connected using component, I believe the ATI video card automatically converts everything into 16-235.

Here are my software settings:
- In CCC, I have contrast/brightness settings set to "Use application settings"
- I have UseBT601CSC=1 set in the registry
- For HD MPEG2 (720p/1080i TV broadcasts), I use Cyberlink PowerDVD 7 decoder -> EVR
- For HD H264 (720p/1080p x264 MKVs), I use CoreAVC YV12 (input & output levels set to "Autodetect") -> ffdshow RGB32HQ, YCbCr = BT.709, Contrast = Standard (16-235) -> EVR

I'm not 100% certain I'm doing things right and I haven't yet learned how to verify either. Would the above configuration give me 16-235 video levels for all my HD viewing? I'm really not interested in SD.

Thanks in advance!

I recommend you download some calibration samples and use them to confirm as well as calibrate your display. I haven't played with FFDshow enough to help you with it (Arfster has though).

The calibration sources I use I listed in this earlier post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13939785#post13939785

Here are some key points that will hopefully help:


TVs, video sources, and typical PC video files use grey levels between 16-235 to represent the black to white range.
PCs and PC monitors normally operate using a 0-255 range.
Since PCs need video to display video correctly, during video processing it is typical to expand video from 16-235 into 0-255 before sending it to the desktop.
Although PCs normally expand video, there is a bug in ATI drivers where SD content isn't expanded unless "UseBT601CSC=1" is set in the registry.
There are two ways to get video to display correctly on a TV:

at final output, "compress" everything from 0-255 into 16-235 (this makes everything look correct including desktop, pictures, games, but it means video is expanded and compressed plus BTB and WTW is lost). If you want to play video games, use the PC as a PC, and look at pictures, this is the best option since everything looks correct, including video.
don't expand video before sending it to the desktop (this means the video maintains BTB and WTW and potentially has less processing; but it means that the desktop, pictures, and video games will not look right). If you are a videophile or your HTPC is dedicated to video output only, this is the best option.

By default, when using an HDMI to HDMI connection to an HDTV or when using component video, #1 is done automatically.
The CCC "color" brightness and contrast settings affect the final output and can be used to perform #1 (if not done automatically). Typically "color" brightness/contrast needs to be set to (approximately) +31/73% to convert 0-255 into 16-235.
The CCC AVIVO brightness and contrast settings affect the video expansion and can be used to perform #2. Typically "AVIVO" brightness/contrast needs to be set to +16/86% to send video non-expanded (16-235).
If everything is done by the video card in hardware, ATI uses 10-bit color accuracy and in theory there should be no loss by using option #1. On the other hand 3rd party codecs, like ffdshow, only send 8-bit color to the renderer so some argue there may be a very minor loss in accuracy if #1 is used. Note that this has been an ongoing issue of debate and what I have stated is my best understanding/interpretation after my research - but it still isn't necessarily correct.
If you use option #1, a screen capture of video will produce a picture using the 0-255 range.
If you use option #2, a screen capture of video will produce a picture using the 16-235 range.


Personally I use option #1 and Arfster uses option #2.

What I don't know for certain is if component out is already compressed into 16-235. If it is, all you need is to do is add "UseBT601CSC=1" and to then check calibration (and fine tune your TV). If component doesn't automatically compress into 16-235, you then need to choose option 1 or option 2 above (and then fine tune your TV).

[red5goahead]

mhhh seems a lot of problem with Cyberlink h264/avc1 (PDVD8) and dxva under 8.6 new drivers. With my ati 3850 and mpc-hc the ati drivers crash often with blue screen of death, sometimes ccc reset drivers. I tried to open some reference file mkv x264 whit level@4.1 (not problem with 8.5) and some ts file in h264 ripped from Rai HD Dtt (not problem with 8.5 with PDVD8)
No problem with mpc video decoder (dvxa) for these mkv play. Also ArcSoft h264 work fine.
Cyberlink SP/DVD (PDVD8) continue work fine also with 8.6.

edit: Windows Vista SP1.

[StinDaWg]

I just hooked up my new HP slimline with the HD 2400 and I cannot get audio through hdmi. I bought the ati hdmi adapter off of newegg and I have been downloading updated drivers for everything, searching google and trying various methods but nothing works. Hoping someone can help.
Again, anyone able to get sound from HDMI using Vista?

[karrih]

So I also tried 8.6 drivers in my XP setup and Bluray playback busted totally, all I get is black picture with sound, at least with PDVD Ultra 7.3 build 4102. Back to 8.5 it is for me. Of course PDVD 4102 doesn't have working 1080 HA for XP, but I can live with 720p for a while.

[dauger]

So I also tried 8.6 drivers in my XP setup and Bluray playback busted totally, all I get is black picture with sound, at least with PDVD Ultra 7.3 build 4102. Back to 8.5 it is for me. Of course PDVD 4102 doesn't have working 1080 HA for XP, but I can live with 720p for a while.

I just found this out the hard way as well. I spent the past couple evenings rebuilding my HTPC several times trying to figure out why I could no longer play BluRay. D'oh.

[Luar Azul]

yeah it's always a good idea to ask Sapphire for BIOS updates.

for some reason, they don't offer them on their website :(

I sent them an email again a few days ago, and they've sent me an even newer BIOS :D

ATi Bios version 010.073.000.004.0000000, the one they sent me 6 months ago was 010.060.000.000.0000000

maybe my randomly corrupted mouse pointer will be fixed........obviously the pointer hardware acceleration has always been fishy up to now...

Thanks! :) I already sent them a mail, let's see what they will say. It seems that the problems are only found in XP. I don't have Vista to try it on, but I tried the 8.6 drivers with EVR in XP and the result (corruption, green screens, etc) was pretty much the same.

[topcaser]

So I also tried 8.6 drivers in my XP setup and Bluray playback busted totally, all I get is black picture with sound, at least with PDVD Ultra 7.3 build 4102. Back to 8.5 it is for me. Of course PDVD 4102 doesn't have working 1080 HA for XP, but I can live with 720p for a while.

This is really strange: IMO It depends on your system. I had problems with deinterlacing with 8.5 whereas some guys have spoken from the best version ever. The same here with 8.6. Some write, that they have no problems whereas other have black/Bluescreen problems. I think this is very randomly what else you have installed on the system.

[daMaster]

This is bypassing driver-based expansion (by doing the RGB conversion in ffdshow), but by setting standard you are actually expanding in ffdshow instead! Note the setting refers to input luma range, while it always outputs to 0-255. Thus if you tell it incoming is standard aka 16-235, it expands it, but if you set full range it maps 0-255 to 0-255, ie no change (this wording confuses the hell out of everyone).

Thus, you have everything set to expand to pc levels (0-255)

If you want 16-235, which almost certainly your TV willl, you have to:
a) set CCC video brightness to 16, contrast to 86
b) set ffdshow RGB32 output to full range.

You were right, of course! I was very confused by the terms "expanded" and "contracted", etc. and only after I started taking screenshots and verifying levels in PhotoShop did I truly really understand the difference between PC levels and video levels and what I needed to do achieve video levels out to my TV.

When I have "Use application settings" enabled in CCC, then it has no effect on the ffdshow RGB32HQ output, as that video path's levels seem to get controlled entirely by the ffdshow Contrast = Standard vs. Full Range setting. So I set it to Full Range as you recommended and screenshots verified in PhotoShop confirm that black is RGB: 16,16,16 and white is RGB: 235,235,235.

As for the Cyberlink video path for HD MPEG2, that is indeed affected by the CCC "Use application settings" checkbox. When "Use application settings" is enabled, I get PC levels out of Cyberlink.

I haven't verified any SD content, since I rarely, if ever, watch anything SD these days. HD was the reason I built this HTPC :D

Thanks for your very informative post! I'm now comforted by the fact that when I calibrate my grayscale with the EyeOne I'll have the right levels coming out of the HTPC to the TV.

[daMaster]

Sets it to expand all SD



HD = expanded by default



This is bypassing driver-based expansion (by doing the RGB conversion in ffdshow), but by setting standard you are actually expanding in ffdshow instead! Note the setting refers to input luma range, while it always outputs to 0-255. Thus if you tell it incoming is standard aka 16-235, it expands it, but if you set full range it maps 0-255 to 0-255, ie no change (this wording confuses the hell out of everyone).


Thus, you have everything set to expand to pc levels (0-255)


If you want 16-235, which almost certainly your TV willl, you have to:

a) set CCC video brightness to 16, contrast to 86
b) set ffdshow RGB32 output to full range.

Unless your TV has a specific setting you can change to enable "full range RGB" (0-255), it does require video levels.

Since you are connected using component, I believe the ATI video card automatically converts everything into 16-235.



I recommend you download some calibration samples and use them to confirm as well as calibrate your display. I haven't played with FFDshow enough to help you with it (Arfster has though).

The calibration sources I use I listed in this earlier post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13939785#post13939785

Here are some key points that will hopefully help:


TVs, video sources, and typical PC video files use grey levels between 16-235 to represent the black to white range.
PCs and PC monitors normally operate using a 0-255 range.
Since PCs need video to display video correctly, during video processing it is typical to expand video from 16-235 into 0-255 before sending it to the desktop.
Although PCs normally expand video, there is a bug in ATI drivers where SD content isn't expanded unless "UseBT601CSC=1" is set in the registry.
There are two ways to get video to display correctly on a TV:

at final output, "compress" everything from 0-255 into 16-235 (this makes everything look correct including desktop, pictures, games, but it means video is expanded and compressed plus BTB and WTW is lost). If you want to play video games, use the PC as a PC, and look at pictures, this is the best option since everything looks correct, including video.
don't expand video before sending it to the desktop (this means the video maintains BTB and WTW and potentially has less processing; but it means that the desktop, pictures, and video games will not look right). If you are a videophile or your HTPC is dedicated to video output only, this is the best option.

By default, when using an HDMI to HDMI connection to an HDTV or when using component video, #1 is done automatically.
The CCC "color" brightness and contrast settings affect the final output and can be used to perform #1 (if not done automatically). Typically "color" brightness/contrast needs to be set to (approximately) +31/73% to convert 0-255 into 16-235.
The CCC AVIVO brightness and contrast settings affect the video expansion and can be used to perform #2. Typically "AVIVO" brightness/contrast needs to be set to +16/86% to send video non-expanded (16-235).
If everything is done by the video card in hardware, ATI uses 10-bit color accuracy and in theory there should be no loss by using option #1. On the other hand 3rd party codecs, like ffdshow, only send 8-bit color to the renderer so some argue there may be a very minor loss in accuracy if #1 is used. Note that this has been an ongoing issue of debate and what I have stated is my best understanding/interpretation after my research - but it still isn't necessarily correct.
If you use option #1, a screen capture of video will produce a picture using the 0-255 range.
If you use option #2, a screen capture of video will produce a picture using the 16-235 range.


Personally I use option #1 and Arfster uses option #2.

What I don't know for certain is if component out is already compressed into 16-235. If it is, all you need is to do is add "UseBT601CSC=1" and to then check calibration (and fine tune your TV). If component doesn't automatically compress into 16-235, you then need to choose option 1 or option 2 above (and then fine tune your TV).

Thanks for the detailed and informative post! I went with option #2 because I really only use my HTPC for video. Mind you, my MediaPortal interface does look awfully dark now, but I can live with it.

[karrih]

This is really strange: IMO It depends on your system. I had problems with deinterlacing with 8.5 whereas some guys have spoken from the best version ever. The same here with 8.6. Some write, that they have no problems whereas other have black/Bluescreen problems. I think this is very randomly what else you have installed on the system.

In my case only Bluray playback with PDVD was affected. HD from cable, both mpeg2 and H264 worked as with 8.5, although I tried them only briefly. Could be somekind of HDCP issue, I guess, even though Cyberlink Bluray Advisor was still okaying setup.

[topcaser]

Hi,

Iam owning a 2600XT and modded the BIOS with the BIOS editor i posted above. All worked properly for a week now.

Now i installed 8.6 (coming from 8.3) and used the common deinstallation process (Win XP) with Driver Cleaner in the safe mode.

During installation of 8.6 a got an error window: No GUID bla found. I clicked OK and the driver seems to be installed correctly - also CCC.

When i open CCC i can found the correct name of the Graphics: 2600XT

Then i wanted to patch the registry - but there is only and video folder there and no subfolders any more.

Do you think, that the modded BIOS caused these problems?

I double checked the HW-ID in Device manager and in the 8.6 config (inf) file.

Installations-File:

"ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9588


Hardware ID in Device manager:
PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9588&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_00

It seems all ok. What do you recommend me?

Install the old 8.3 driver again?
Install 8.6 again?
Flash origianal BIOS?

[topcaser]

Now i deinstalled 8.6 and installed it again (without driver cleaner). And it workes again. Proper installation. I find the keys in the registry again...

Nevertheless: to the deinterlacing quality: I open CCC and go to deinterlacing settings. I adust vector adaptive and unchecked automatic. If i watch to the flag window - just behind the flag (at the wall) i see a trepidation (@english guys: is this the correct word - maybe you say jitter??) just behind the flag at the wall when the flag blows. It is just a second and then it is sharp. This sceanrio repeats when the flag blows again...

[equivalent]

thanks for the info topcaser, yes it is 'jitter'. Trepidation is psychological, it means a kind of fear, e.g 'I approached the dark house with trepidation'.

[Rew452]

I think I saw a fix or at least a work around for this problem; could someone give me the cure???

I have the following:
Asus P5E
E8400 Duo Core 3Ghz @ 3.8Ghz
4Mb Ram
VisionTek HD 3850 512Mb PCIe
Cat 8.5 (Cat 8.6 a bust
WinXp SP3
Mon 1 HP W2207 HDCP compliant
Mon 2 Mits HD4000 PJ HDCP compliant
Using PDVD 7 or 8 Ultra with latest patches

Ok, here is the problem:
If I play any BD disc on mon 1 it all plays fine. But if I extend my display to mon 2, the PJ
the intro video, trailers and menu's don't display any video until the main movie starts; then it plays fine.

Most annoying, what can I do to correct this behavior?? I have seen it from time to time in the past but somehow it would go away but not now.

Thanks for the Help

Rew

[topcaser]

thanks for the info topcaser, yes it is 'jitter'.
Do you have the same?

[topcaser]

Hallo,

here is a short video from CCCs Flag. It is not really good from resolution point of view, but you can see the problem. Who else has this problem?

[Klaus_1250]

... and it seems that the latest versions available for the 3XXX is 10.75 ...

Sapphire have been shipping BIOS 10.77 as of March on 3850's AGP. Not sure what the most recent is (three months later now).

On topic: I have a Sapphire HD3850 AGP, Catalyst 8.6, XP SP3. No real problems, e.g. most things work except:

* DXVA WMV acceleration: Doesn't seem to do anything. In fact, some WMV's have become unplayable in WMP11 (XP SP3).
* ATi MPEG decoder: Works for MPEG2, but not for h264. The video's do play, BUT are in slowmotion (sound is normal). Not sure what is going on, but it plays the video's at less than half speed. The renderer reports it is outputting @200Hz??? Once in a while, the video skips and catches up. Cyberlink using DXVA works a-ok. MPC-HC using DXVA works a-ok too. Looking at my CPU usuage which spikes up, it looks like ATi's own decoder isn't using DXVA :-(

I'm especially confused and annoyed by the latter issue, because I have no clue as to where to look for a solution.

Solved the issue with DXVA acceleration though WMV Powertoy. Had to set Post-Processing features to off. Not sure why though, CPU usage was only 60% (P4 3.2 HT) with PP on. Using either no DXVA or DXVA without PP gives smooth playback. :confused:

[leeperry]

I'm still in contact with Sapphire Tech Support.

He told me "This is a latest release that improved so compatible issue with LCD panels."

so far I didn't get the corrupted mouse pointer problem :)

[Richardw322]

I have a rather strange situation. I installed a Radeon 2400 pro a year ago, it came with 512 meg of ram. A month ago I wanted a bigger card, and I saw a deal for a 2600 pro with 256 meg, and the 64 bit interface. So I bought the card, uninstalled the 2400 drivers (ran drivercleaner AND ccleaner) and installed the new card and gave it a quick look. Looked fine, except the only options for deinterlacing were bob and weave. The 2400 always gave me the 3 adaptive and bob and weave.

I knew the installation had problems, so after a week or 2 I reinstalled Windows, and gave it the 8.6 Catalyst. Still only Bob and Weave. (Did fix the other issues) This is with Windows XP Pro. I am guessing that it's because the card only has 256 meg, does that sound right?

[leeperry]

ok the 10.73 BIOS update for my PCI-E HD2600 completely craps out with Haali's Renderer....back to 10.60 FTW :D

[aworks]

I have:
HP Pavilion m8013w
Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.5Ghz
ASUS M2N68-LA motherboard
ONBOARD GeForce 6150se
4GB Ram
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1

I have recently tried to install both of these graphics cards in PCI-E, with the same problems:

Radeon HD 2400
Radeon HD 4850

I get a blank screen on startup of Vista; Safemode shows last driver installed is crcdisk.sys, then it hangs at that in safemode, or black screen in normal. I can hear the OS loading, but no display.

I can remove the graphics card, and it will start up properly.

At first I thought it was my ineffectiveness at disabling the onboard Nvidea
card, but tech support for those cards insist that disabling/uninstalling it
in device manager, and switching primary video adaptor settings in BIOS from onboard to pci-e should be sufficient. I'm still doubting this a bit, since my BIOS doesn't allow to disable the onboard, only switch preference. I'm wondering if the integrated nvidia is conflicting with the radeon cards.

Googling the crcdisk.sys BSOD reveals this was a common problem when vista came out with "incompatible" hardware on a Vista upgrade from XP, and is either a hardware conflict, or conflict between drivers, but I could not find a common solution.

My generalized hunch is that something with vista and the onboard card
doesn't like the new graphics card.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this, or a solution?

[topcaser]

I had also this porblem with black screen (with a 2400XT). Solution was, to connect a S-Video cable to the graphics and to a TV. Install drivers. Connect HDMI or whatever and reboot. The screen is black during boot anyway. Nevertheless, as soon as drivers are loaded, the black screen is gone.

This was only with my LCD-TV LG-LB2R but not (!) with my PC monitor.

Think, it is a resolution bug during boot. BTW: A bought a 2600 XT and this card works properly.

[Sunnie]

Excuse me for just jumping in here. I have been searching this forum regarding a solution for excessive fan noise on my newly purchased PCie VisionTek ATI HD2600XT card. I was wondering if anyone had tried to slow the fan down in RPM to see if it would reduce the noise, but still cool the card? If so, did you use a simple resister, if so, of what value.

[karrih]

Excuse me for just jumping in here. I have been searching this forum regarding a solution for excessive fan noise on my newly purchased PCie VisionTek ATI HD2600XT card. I was wondering if anyone had tried to slow the fan down in RPM to see if it would reduce the noise, but still cool the card? If so, did you use a simple resister, if so, of what value.

I have ASUS HD2600Pro and I am using RivaTuner to run the fan at minimun speed. That is enough for video use as my case ventilation is ok.

[red5goahead]

Catalyst 8.6 same with 8.5. My Asus 3850 is connected to 2 devices:
an Asus 19" lcd monitor by vga and dvi white connector and a plasma Panasonic 37PV60 by hdmi dongle on graphic card side (yellow connector) and on Hdmi-2 input on tv side. Both tv/monitor it's set to 1280x720 resolution. 75 HZ for Asus lcd , 50 or 60 HZ for the plasma.
lcd is the primary monitor , plasma the secondary one.
I use it with Media portal based Htpc.
All work fine. But when I leave the hdmi-2 input to an other one analogic tv or rgb input ad so one the graphic card not ignore that and seems reset itself or launch a reset procedure . the screen become black and blinking for few second also on lcd primary monitor how when the refresh rate profile change. This is annoying and cause some problem when playing multimedia files because the filtergraph and directx procedure are stopped. so if a play a dvd or divx file on hdmi-2 and change the tv input the graphics card seems reset itself and stop the play. This is weard and some catalyst ago this issue was not present. Anyone have this problem?

[DracuGol]

Again, anyone able to get sound from HDMI using Vista?
I've been trying for days to get audio out of HDMI. I am using a Radeon 2600 XT, Vista Ultimate. I have tried several versions of Catalyst, it always detects my Denon 4308CI receiver as DVI instead of HDMI. If I connect the HDMI cable directly to my Sony TV, I have sound. It appears to be some kind of incompatibility between ATI and Denon.

[genro]

Now that the 4850 / 4870 cards are out for a bit, I was wondering if the registry script is applicable to them as well? I would think it would be the same as it was for the 3xxx series?

[millerbrad]

I've been trying for days to get audio out of HDMI. I am using a Radeon 2600 XT, Vista Ultimate. I have tried several versions of Catalyst, it always detects my Denon 4308CI receiver as DVI instead of HDMI. If I connect the HDMI cable directly to my Sony TV, I have sound. It appears to be some kind of incompatibility between ATI and Denon.

Are you trying to do HDMI output from both ports on your 2600XT?

Catalysts 7.8 and up won't let you use dual-HDMI output. Even if you use two of the ATI DVI-to-HDMI dongles, it'll force one of the outputs to DVI mode. If you try the 7.7 Catalysts, it should work in this situation.

[DracuGol]

I am only trying to get audio out of one HDMI port.

[Wiggies666]

Anyone a clue?
When using mpc homecinema with VMR9 I get scrambled image after a short while which looks like a decoding problem (blocked image which hangs at a certain point or turns green). Setting the program to "use default" direct show video renderer seems to make things better only I lack subtitles than...
Currently I am using Catalist 8.6, but also with the latest Omega drivers I have this issue. Switching to manufacturer's drivers solves the problem, but then I have the issue that Powerdvd sometimes crashes reporting I don't have an hdcp compliant graphics adapter..ahrgh....

Maybe overlooked a thread, but couldn't find one similar.

Thnx in advance.

[jong1]

I don't have your exact card. I guess it could be something to do with it being a AGP. However, I would try the following (in order):

1. Make sure you are using the latest public release of MPC-HC and not one of the endless interim builds that are floating around. There is (quite reasonably) no quality control on those and many have broken codecs.
2. Get the Catalyst 8.7 beta. This is what i am using with my 3850 and all is perfect. 8.6 is known to have broken hardware acceleration. Not heard of your problem but it might be related.
3. if you have been playing with Omega drivers now might be the time for a thorough clean uninstall and re-install of ATI drivers using Driver Cleaner or equivalent.

[s174955]

Are you using XP?
I also had VMR9 problems with DXVA, but only in fullscreen. Windowed it was working OK.
I switched now to Vista, as you can use DXVA + subs with EVR. This works file.
Prefer XP though.

[jong1]

VMR9 working fine here on XP (renderless, fullscreen).

[Wiggies666]

Thanks for your answers guys.
I was indeed already thinking to try Vista, but before that I indeed will try the 8.7 beta after a good cleanup including registry, see what it brings.
Funny thing is, that I had it both with an Asus and MSI card. Might be a general combination error between my pc and the card.
Using the mpc hc latest official version.

[sstephen]

Hi:

I have tried to search this thread for answers, but either I get no hits or so many it's difficult to go through them all, so if this has been answered, please let me know where, and I'll apologize for posting.

hardware first
Sapphire 2400 Pro
ECS mobo using intel 945 chipset (I think, using a different computer for this post)
dual core 3.4G intel
1 G of ram

Can get output on overlay or vmr7/vmr9 without dxva, but on high bit rate h264 drops frames (> 23 Mbps or thereabouts)

ok, so here is the issue.

I'm trying to get dxva to work, with MPC HC. Disabled other codecs, when I look at filters it is the internal ones getting used.

I can get it to output as I mentioned if dxva is off.
If I switch dxva on and play a mkv, I check the vid. filter and see that dxva is switched on, and it has some message about the setting (not the dxva not used message), but I get no video output or sound. I am testing with a moderate bitrate mkv (it would play fine, both vid and audio, with no dxva).
So I'm pretty sure hardware accel. is trying to be used here.
I've tried with overlay and vmr9 renderless. In fact all of them, just to see, but of course with vmr7 dxva says not being used (and MPC HC crashes).

Currently using Catalyst 8.5, and whatever driver came with 8.5 after a downgrade from 8.6. Did the uninstall of 8.6 first.
MPC HC I have tried the latest stable build, .604, I think, and tried a few other MPC HC builds as well, 582, 613, 6xx (higher than 613)

This is in windowed or full screen, makes no difference. The tearing fix is turned off.

I also tried this mkv using powerdvd 7.3 ultra with dxva on, still no video or audio.
Also tried the cyberlink codec and haali media splitter in MPC HC. Will work if dxva is off, but still no sound or audio if turned on.

Can anyone give me other suggestions on what to try?

Thanks

[ToughRowToHoe]

I've been trying for days to get audio out of HDMI. I am using a Radeon 2600 XT, Vista Ultimate. I have tried several versions of Catalyst, it always detects my Denon 4308CI receiver as DVI instead of HDMI. If I connect the HDMI cable directly to my Sony TV, I have sound. It appears to be some kind of incompatibility between ATI and Denon.

I believe I read somewhere that people were having trouble with some HDMI switches because the EDID info wasn't passed through. Perhaps your Denon is doing something similar? You might try running your TV before you switch on the receiver and then finally fire up the computer. I'm wondering if the Denon grabs the EDID info from your TV on start up but doesn't otherwise pass the information through. Another thought is to set it up on your TV and then save the profile. When you bring up the Denon, switch to the saved profile. Good luck.

[Wo0zy]

I've been trying for days to get audio out of HDMI. I am using a Radeon 2600 XT, Vista Ultimate. I have tried several versions of Catalyst, it always detects my Denon 4308CI receiver as DVI instead of HDMI. If I connect the HDMI cable directly to my Sony TV, I have sound. It appears to be some kind of incompatibility between ATI and Denon.

Make make is your card?

Wo0zy

[DracuGol]

I believe I read somewhere that people were having trouble with some HDMI switches because the EDID info wasn't passed through. Perhaps your Denon is doing something similar? You might try running your TV before you switch on the receiver and then finally fire up the computer. I'm wondering if the Denon grabs the EDID info from your TV on start up but doesn't otherwise pass the information through. Another thought is to set it up on your TV and then save the profile. When you bring up the Denon, switch to the saved profile. Good luck.
IMHO, the Denon receiver should not pass the TV's EDID to the graphic card. If that was the case, then the graphic card would only output stereo sound since the TV only advertises 2 speakers. For some reason the Denon does not advertise itself as a 7.1 channel audio/video device. :-(

[DracuGol]

Make make is your card?

Wo0zy
My card is MSI: http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1236&maincat_no=130&cat2_no=137&cat3_no=172

[alecoddlyiv]

is there any way to avoid a no signal message being delivered to my LCD tv at random intervals when I have had the tv switched off or have been using another source?

The tv is a samsung, the gfx is a 2600 pro and im using driver version 8.2 for vista after reading some but not all of the posts here.

I did setup a hotkey which works occasionally but only when ccc doesnt crash itself which means sometimes having to button the pc in order to get anything back.

thanks

[Sunnie]

I am only trying to get audio out of one HDMI port.

Use the DVI closest to the motherboard.

[ToughRowToHoe]

IMHO, the Denon receiver should not pass the TV's EDID to the graphic card. If that was the case, then the graphic card would only output stereo sound since the TV only advertises 2 speakers. For some reason the Denon does not advertise itself as a 7.1 channel audio/video device. :-(

I can send DD or DTS to my stereo TV. If the Denon doesn't pass on the EDID info, the card won't know what video levels the TV supports. Maybe not?

[ToughRowToHoe]

Use the DVI closest to the motherboard.

I thought that was on the audio faq but it sure wasn't. Thanks.

[shurik_1]

Managed to get 42° GPU temp. watching SD Content by lowering voltage. Coming from 47°.

can you tell what values did you use for frequency and voltage?
thank you

[carlo_0000]

hi

for poeple like me with a cpu what is only SSE (not SSE2)

i found a alternatif

using the codec (filter) of mpchc (media player clasic)

aivable here:

-http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=170561&package_id=264678&release_id=609982

download the mpchc_x86_v1.1.604.0_MPCVideoDec.zip

then unzip
register the filter (with directshow filter manager or other)

open the MPC video decoder (filter setting)

select enable dxva (if it isn't)
and olso don't forget to select H264 / AVC in codec

apply close

load your favorite player or dvb vieuwer select the MPC video decoder

i tested with alt-dvb (ok)
dvbdream (black screen)

http://perso.latribu.com/tribu/jpg/mpc%20video%20decoder.JPG

[bjuford]

Are you using XP?
I also had VMR9 problems with DXVA, but only in fullscreen. Windowed it was working OK.
I switched now to Vista, as you can use DXVA + subs with EVR. This works file.
Prefer XP though.

I second that. Tried everything over a mounth to get DXVA to work flawlessly with my non old AMD 2500+, socket A, AGP HD2400pro on XP. Regardless of numerous driver changes, re-installs, C: formats, It just didn't fly..

Then switches to Vista, and been happy since.

[bushmouse]

I just bought a VisionTek 2600 PRO AGP card for my media center PC. The video playback is great, however I want to use it to pass audio over the HDMI cable along with video. I went into the sounds of control panel and no audio device other than the sound card that is integrated in my PC (AC-97) is listed. I also went into device manager to look for the audio device to no avail. On the package it stated that it had built in 5.1 sound. Please help this is the reason I bought this card; to pass video and sound over one HDMI cable. Thanks.

[Dee_NA]

Does anybody know what issues ATi Cat. 8.7 has by any chance?

[doctorcilantro]

DXVA enabled playback for correctly encoded x264 material works only if VMR9 is used w/o Haali selected as source filter (in J. River MC12) (Haali still shows up in systray however).

EVR simply won't work on XP SP3 for me, with 8.1, 8.6, and 8.7 Catalyst which is what I've tried.

I see a 10% cpu reduction when using the dxva option in Cyberlink x264 decoder over CoreAVC.

DC

[daMaster]

Catalyst 8.7 was released yesterday (07/21). Anybody tried it out yet?

[karrih]

Catalyst 8.7 was released yesterday (07/21). Anybody tried it out yet?

I have been running it for one day in XP, looks ok so far. Changing profiles seems faster, lets hope the reliability has also been improved. Only reg hack I did was my usual setting of DENOISE_DEF to zero and reboot to get rid of the ghosts in SD.

[djos]

Im running 3.7 on Vista and no issues so far. :)

[arfster]

Catalyst 8.7 was released yesterday (07/21). Anybody tried it out yet?

Works OK in Vista. Usual bugs fixed with reghacks, no acceleration with dualmonitors (vforceuvdh264 &vforceuvdvc1=1), and SD not expanding in line with HD (usebt601csc=1).

[Joe Hendrix]

I had a problem with version 8.3, where if I turned off my TV (hooked to my HTPC) while listening to music, and then turned it back on later, it would come back on with a different resolution. I would then have to go back into Catalyst Control Panel and reset my custom resolution.

Any chance that the new version has fixed this bug?

[mushbert]

system: kt400/athlon XP 2700+/1gb ram/audigy2/sapphire 2600xt AGP

software: winXP SP1/VIA chipset drivers v518A/CCCP codec package with MPC as display app/.NET v2.0 SP1/DirectX 9.0c June'08/Catalyst 8.6 AGP hotfix

displays: samsung CRT on analogue output, epson 720p projector on DVI output via HDMI->DVI cable (projector set as primary, desktop res 720p, CRT res 800x600 panning)

I'm having two problems that are preventing me from using this card. First, I often can't even playback SD material encoded in Xvid or h.264 without a horizontal line through the picture in the area with the highest contrast. Changing driver versions seemed to fix it, but eventually I did something (maybe a registry setting?) that broke it again. I've read that the VMR renderers are apt to have tearing problems, but from my experience this doesn't look like a regular tear - it's more like a ~15 pixel high band across the image where the colors and saturation are messed up. Any ideas on this?

Second, the whole reason I got this card was that my machine is starting to show its age and can't properly playback some 720p h.264 files with higher bitrates - so the UVD feature was very attractive. Of course I can't get it working, for MPEG2 or h.264 (haven't tried WMV or VC1 as I don't have anything to test it with). This is the dealbreaker - if this isn't going to work for h.264 I'm getting rid of the card.

What I've tried:

PowerDVD 8.0.1730's h.264 decoder. with DVXA set to enabled, video plays but does not use hardware acceleration.. I've read that for DXVA this decoder requires a CPU that supports SSE2 extensions - the Athlon XP series doesn't, so that may be why(?). Weird side note, when playing 720p video this decoder displays it at 720x480 only, regardless of being fullscreen/windowed.

MPC-HC decoder (standalone filter and in MPC-HC app): same result. DXVA set to enabled, VMR9 selected, VMR Overlay mode switched on (for soft-coded subtitles). Filter status shows DXVA not in use.

ATI AVIVO decoder: I had high hopes for this one, but the version included in the 8.6 drivers will not load to play h.264. I've set it as preferred in MPC's external filter settings, and blocked all other decoders. MPC simply reports that it can't find a decoder and plays the file audio only. I guess I'll have to find an older one to try.

Questions:
1. What Catalyst version should I be using? And where can I get it? I've had a really hard time finding older releases.

2. The AGP Hotfix version - is it necessary? I did have the problem where the drivers would not detect my card, but the AGP hotfix drivers didn't either. After I reinstalled the VIA chipset drivers and ran DriverCleaner the hotfix package worked and I don't think I tried the regular release again.

3. Registry tweaks - is there anything that needs to be turned on? I'm guessing the ForceUVD entries should be set to 1, but I'm pretty sure I've tried that.

4. Has anyone with an AGP system and older processor (Athlon XP/Sempron/Opteron) that doesn't support SSE2 gotten hardware decoding working?

[GMan4911]

system: kt400/athlon XP 2700+/1gb ram/audigy2/sapphire 2600xt AGP

software: winXP SP1/VIA chipset drivers v518A/CCCP codec package with MPC as display app/Catalyst 8.6 AGP hotfix

displays: samsung CRT on analogue output, epson 720p projector on DVI output via HDMI->DVI cable (projector set as primary, desktop res 720p, CRT res 800x600 panning)

.
.
.

Questions:
1. What Catalyst version should I be using? And where can I get it? I've had a really hard time finding older releases.

2. The AGP Hotfix version - is it necessary? I did have the problem where the drivers would not detect my card, but the AGP hotfix drivers didn't either. After I reinstalled the VIA chipset drivers and ran DriverCleaner the hotfix package worked and I don't think I tried the regular release again.

3. Registry tweaks - is there anything that needs to be turned on? I'm guessing the ForceUVD entries should be set to 1, but I'm pretty sure I've tried that.

4. Has anyone with an AGP system and older processor (Athlon XP/Sempron/Opteron) that doesn't support SSE2 gotten hardware decoding working?

I'm running on a slightly slower system than yours - Athlon XP Mobile 2600+, not overclocked. My video card is the HD 3650 AGP with no registry tweaks.

I installed the CCC 8.6 AGP hotfix and it works fine for me. I've been running the OEM version of PowerDVD, V7.3 with the latest updates and it decodes H.264 just fine, although the CPU utilization averages around 50% with peaks into the 80s. I'm not sure if that's good or bad but it works with no stuttering. My TV is 720p.

There is a utility called DXVA Checker (http://bluesky23.hp.infoseek.co.jp/DXVAChecker_1700.zip) that you can run to see if DXVA is available. When I run it, it shows DXVA1 is available but not DXVA2, which is only available on Vista. You need VC++ 2005 SP1 redistributables and .NET 2.0 installed to run the utility.

[mushbert]

Hmm, well that's a little encouraging (would be more so if I had gone for the 3650 instead). Is your CPU a Throughbred or Barton core (XP-M 2600+ came in both)? I don't think anything before the Athlon 64 series supported the SSE2 instruction set, so hopefully that's not the problem with PowerDVD. I tried that app you linked to, it won't run. Gives me an error: "The application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem". I've only ever seen that message with a Wii homebrew app that needed .Net 3.0, but from the readme it should only need .net 2.0, which I have. What service pack are you running GMan4911?

[GMan4911]

If you already have .NET 2.0, then you still need VC++ 2005 SP1 Redistributables (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=200B2FD9-AE1A-4A14-984D-389C36F85647&displaylang=en)

My CPU is the Barton core. I don't think any of the Socket-A CPUs supports SSE2.

Funny thing is, PDVD reports DXVA is not in use. Not sure why that is.

[GMan4911]

The Catalyst 8.7 AGP hotfix (http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31625) was posted yesterday. I haven't tried it yet, perhaps it fixes the DXVA problem.

[mushbert]

I know I've never installed that (VC++ redist) myself, but it sounds very familiar... Doesn't some form of that come with the Catalyst drivers? I'll try it and see if it'll let me run the DXVA checker at least.

edit: Ok, so the checker works now, and reports the following:

NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT
ModeMPEG2_A: DXVA1, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeMPEG2_B: DXVA1, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeMPEG2_C: DXVA1, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeMPEG2_D: DXVA1, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeWMV9_MoComp: DXVA1, NV12, -
ModeWMV9_PostProc: DXVA1, NV12, -
1720AC81-9D1B-4F63-9A37-4A88483D0B87: DXVA1, NV12, Unknown

So unless that last entry is h.264, it looks like it's not there. My machine is dualboot though, and I don't have PureVideo or PowerDVD installed on this system. In case you're wondering the 2600xt is sitting in its box right now because this windows install is messed up and bluescreens when catalyst is installed, and I needed it working. All my testing is done on the secondary install, which has barely anything in it.

I thought DXVA was actually working with the PureVideo drivers, but didn't do a whole lot. Is the VC++ package something I would have needed to use hardware acceleration? Or just to run the check program? Does the NV12 indicate that it will ONLY use HW accel if ffdshow is set to output NV12?

[Luar Azul]

Tried the new ATI 8.7 drivers with my Sapphire 2400pro in Windows XP and exdeus (http://exdeus.home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ati-hd2x00/) tweaks.

Result: same problems that appeared with 8.6. - Video stutters and there is corruption with MPC-HC in VMR9 mode with DXVA enabled. I went back to version 8.5 and everything is perfect once again.

A curious note: with 8.7 drivers, the corruption disappears when the "jitter curve" is displayed (ctrl+J). Obviously it is not practical to see movies in this way. The corruption also disappears in "Overlay mode", although there is still the occasional stutter.

It seems incredible to me how drivers can actually get worse over time! Well... that's just the way things go!

BTW: Great Thanks to the MPC-HC team!! Bravo!! :)

EDIT: after all I had to go back to 8.4 ATI drivers. Version 8.5 sometimes had problems (image would stall some times with dxva). Now with 8.4 everything's back to perfect! :)

[GMan4911]

I know I've never installed that (VC++ redist) myself, but it sounds very familiar... Doesn't some form of that come with the Catalyst drivers? I'll try it and see if it'll let me run the DXVA checker at least.

edit: Ok, so the checker works now, and reports the following:

NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT
ModeMPEG2_A: DXVA1, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeMPEG2_B: DXVA1, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeMPEG2_C: DXVA1, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeMPEG2_D: DXVA1, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeWMV9_MoComp: DXVA1, NV12, -
ModeWMV9_PostProc: DXVA1, NV12, -
1720AC81-9D1B-4F63-9A37-4A88483D0B87: DXVA1, NV12, Unknown

So unless that last entry is h.264, it looks like it's not there. My machine is dualboot though, and I don't have PureVideo or PowerDVD installed on this system. In case you're wondering the 2600xt is sitting in its box right now because this windows install is messed up and bluescreens when catalyst is installed, and I needed it working. All my testing is done on the secondary install, which has barely anything in it.

I thought DXVA was actually working with the PureVideo drivers, but didn't do a whole lot. Is the VC++ package something I would have needed to use hardware acceleration? Or just to run the check program? Does the NV12 indicate that it will ONLY use HW accel if ffdshow is set to output NV12?
The VC++ package was just for the utility program.

The output says you have MPEG2 acceleration at the 3 resolutions and no WMV9 acceleration. Don't know what the last line is, but you don't have h264. The 6600GT does have h.264 acceleration but you still need an h.264 decoder. I don't think PureVideo supports anything other than MPEG2.

[Joe Hendrix]

I had a problem with version 8.3, where if I turned off my TV (hooked to my HTPC) while listening to music, and then turned it back on later, it would come back on with a different resolution. I would then have to go back into Catalyst Control Panel and reset my custom resolution.

Any chance that the new version has fixed this bug?


Not trying to hijack the thread, but since I am an owner of an 2600 series card, I thought someone on this thread might have an answer for me.

[mushbert]

@Joe Hendrix, I didn't experience anything like that with my projector. You didn't state how you're wired, but I know that in 8.6 in the list tree on the left, you get three items for each display, info, setup, something else. On I think the second one, is a list of default supported resolutions for that device, and you can add/remove/disable the ones you don't want - for me, I removed everything but 720p 60Hz (standard). Not sure if 8.3 has that capability but I think that's what you'd want.

@GMan4911:
As I said though, this install has some issues resulting from switching to the ATI card - one of them being I can't get any newer forceware drivers than 77.77 to install properly anymore. h.264 accel requires four things according to NVidia: compatible card, newest PV installed, drivers 84.12 or higher, and a compatible decoder, which seem to include both CyberLinks and Intervideos. Anyway since it doesn't currently meet the driver requirements it's a moot point, I'll check my other install, which has 94.24 on it, the next time I reboot. Anyway, enough NV talk for this post.

From Luar Azul's post up there, I'm guessing I should maybe try Cat8.4 when I try again, I've already found 8.5, but have yet to come across any good (read: complete) archive of catalyst drivers. Anyone have a link?

[Luar Azul]

From Luar Azul's post up there, I'm guessing I should maybe try Cat8.4 when I try again, I've already found 8.5, but have yet to come across any good (read: complete) archive of catalyst drivers. Anyone have a link?

You can find the old drivers at Ati's site. After selectiing your OS, card, etc, go to the bottom of the page where the most recent driver is. At the bottom you will find a link "Previous Drivers and Software" or, if your OS is XP, simply go to:

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/radeonxprevious-xp.html

good luck :)

[hlkc]

Can someone let me know that below tweaks will apply ATI 4850 GC?

http://exdeus.home.comcast.net/ati-hd2x00/

[mushbert]

@ Luar Azul: Yeah, but not the AGP Hotfixes ;)

[hlkc]

Yeah, but not the AGP Hotfixes ;)

Are you referring to my question? if so, what do u mean by AGP hotfixes?

[mushbert]

Sorry hlkc, something must have delayed the posting of my message
(like me forgetting to click Submit) and it ended up in the wrong place. That said, I'm new to ATI cards myself so I don't think I can help you with the question you have.

[Bluemuse101]

Hi All,

Forgive my intrusion on this thread, but I am a Radeon owner(new one) and I need to glean some info from teh other owners out there...Namely, has anyone that reads this post ever experienced Crazy midi problems. Perhaps related to the sample rate or the stable clock rate the Radeon operates? It's a questions I've been trying to answer for three weeks, and gone through much pain troubleshooting(4 reinstalls), so I'm in pain here folks. I'm trying just to get my Midi working again on this new rebuild. If anyone has any info or some symptom rings a bell please(pretty please) email me at RandyKoren@gmail.com. I need other troubleshooting avenues to proceed. It would be much appreciated.

Abit ip35 pro
Pentium Q6600
SATA drives
Ati Radeon 2600xt
Aardvark 24/96 Soundcard

OK, Back to your regularly scheduled program....

-Bluemuse101

[RockySpieler]

Hi All,

Forgive my intrusion on this thread, but I am a Radeon owner(new one) and I need to glean some info from teh other owners out there...Namely, has anyone that reads this post ever experienced Crazy midi problems. Perhaps related to the sample rate or the stable clock rate the Radeon operates? It's a questions I've been trying to answer for three weeks, and gone through much pain troubleshooting(4 reinstalls), so I'm in pain here folks. I'm trying just to get my Midi working again on this new rebuild. If anyone has any info or some symptom rings a bell please(pretty please) email me at RandyKoren@gmail.com. I need other troubleshooting avenues to proceed. It would be much appreciated.

Abit ip35 pro
Pentium Q6600
SATA drives
Ati Radeon 2600xt
Aardvark 24/96 Soundcard

OK, Back to your regularly scheduled program....

-Bluemuse101

Do you want to use the HDMI audio output of the 2600xt?

If not, and you just want to use your Aardvark, then try un-installing all the ATI card's drivers. When you re-start windows, you will only have 800x600 resolution, but you could test your midi audio.

Are you XP or Vista?

I think the earlier ATI drivers (maybe up to 8.4) did not include HDMI audio, it is possible that the HDMI audio is affecting the existing sound card.

[bjuford]

I just reinstalled my HTPC from scratch when updating to MP RC2. Problem is that the new 8.7 AGP hotfix from ATI just gives me troubles when it comes to DXVA. Can some kind soul guide me to find the AGP hotfix 8.5 again. I've searched ATI's site but with no success. It just keep directing me to the new one all the time. I've also tried installing the regular 8.5 driver but that won't fly even when editing the ini-files for AGP hack-install.

:(:(
regards B


Edit: I found it :) available here: www.opendrivers.com
They have a link to back up server that still host it.

[Bluemuse101]

Ah yes, the HDMI Issue..that was two of the four installs.....I actually installed the soundcard first, before any other drivers, just to see if it was indeed my soundcard or some conflicting driver. I had the same issues on a new install with no drivers. It's truly perplexing. The aardvark is running at 65% pci bus efficiency, the normal is 98-99%. Sometimes it can't get a sample rate at all, gives this crazy 1.#INFO khz message in the Measured Sample Rate Box, but if I boot a few times it gets a sample rate.Today I woke up and all of my Audio inputs are consistently distorted. It's degrading.

As far as ATI drivers, I disabled the Hdmi part of the Radeon. It is seeming to lay comfortably in device manager, but I don't really know...

Thanks, though.....Anybody else?


-Bluemuse101

[mushbert]

Edit: I found it :) available here: www.opendrivers.com
They have a link to back up server that still host it.

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for. I didn't see any older than 8.4, but it's still great... I can't believe that with the problems their AGP drivers are having they're removing the old ones that actually work for some people...
I just shelled out for a 4870, I really hope I don't regret it.

[Dee_NA]

Don't forget, omegadrivers will be coming out with a new set here real soon... just to give some of you a heads up and all. it will however, will be interesting to see what he came up with this time around.

[dauger]

I've been banging my head against the wall now for a few hours. The 8.4 drivers worked for me. I upgraded to the new 8.7 drivers and I had the seemingly typical problem with the new drivers where HDDVD and BluRay playback is choppy/screwed up. I uninstalled the 8.7s and reinstalled the 8.4s, but now 8.4 is choppy with HDDVD/BluRay.

What did I do wrong?

[karrih]

What did I do wrong?

Perhaps you were using some reg hacks? Try to apply exdeuses script if you want to get the reg hacks.

[Strayshot]

I've been banging my head against the wall now for a few hours. The 8.4 drivers worked for me. I upgraded to the new 8.7 drivers and I had the seemingly typical problem with the new drivers where HDDVD and BluRay playback is choppy/screwed up. I uninstalled the 8.7s and reinstalled the 8.4s, but now 8.4 is choppy with HDDVD/BluRay.

What did I do wrong?

Did you use drivercleaner between the uninstall of the 8.7 and reinstall of the 8.4?

[rhysevans]

Are the exdeus tweaks recomended on HD 3XXX Cards? Or have the latest Catalyst drivers sorted out all the issues now?

[dauger]

Did you use drivercleaner between the uninstall of the 8.7 and reinstall of the 8.4?

Yup. I uninstalled and booted into safe mode. I ran driver cleaner pro 1.5 (free version from Guru3D), and then for extra fun I ran the guru3D driver sweeper. rebooted into normal mode and installed 8.4

It would seem that power DVD isn't using hardware acceleration as the cpu usage goes up into the 90% area.

I'm using a 2600XT PCIE

[originalsnuffy]

Hi all....

I have been having trouble with my old ATI AIW 9600, AGP. I am having trouble getting the drivers to work with the built in tuner and with my HDTV card (Dvico Tvix).

So I am thinking that maybe I should just pop in a new AGP card into the machine. I know that AGP 2400 cards have had issues...but I was wondering just how bad they would be for my application, which is to play back video from the Dvico card and other lighter video processing.

If you would not recommend the AGP version for this...what AGP cards would you suggest I evaluate? Cost is an issue here...the PC involved is 7 years old and new the end of its useful life.

[dauger]

Ok, the plot thickens:

All VC1 HDDVDs and BluRay DVDs play just fine. PowerDVD 7 lists DXVA as on when playing these discs.

All MPG-4 AVC discs do not work. PowerDVD 7 lists DXVA as off. I have just tried appyling the reg hacks to both the 0000 and 0001 displays to no avail, even after a reboot. I did not add the dual display HWUVD_ForceMPEG2 entry as I am not running dual displays.

I'm absolutely positive that at least one of my MPG-4 AVC discs played properly before I monkeyed around with the drivers.

Does anyone else have any ideas before I do a system wipe?

[dauger]

I found out what the problem was. I had PowerDVD 7 retail and the Arcsoft Total Theater demo installed at the same time. This must cause a problem with mpg4 avc playback. Since I hadn't tried a mpg4 disc in awhile I didn't realize that I broke it. Doing the driver update was a red herring because that caused me to retest my system.

[butters2006]

Another bump. Done because of database outage. We wouldn't want to lose 195+ pages of ATI 2600 goodness...

[flhthemi]

Hi, Robert !

Yes, I get that message, too.

But I realised it with 8.2 first, since before I had 8.1 beta from 3dguru...

I have 2600pro passive, Vista32, PCI-E

Best regards

maier2505

I discovered yesterday, if you set your taskbar in windows to auto hide it will make this error appear at boot of Vista. If your taskbar is set to auto hide try setting it up to NOT auto hide and see if it helps.

BTW - I also found this mmloaddrv.exe error would display after

1) I made the change to auto hide the taskbar
2) I could LOG OFF then LOG ON instead of rebooting to make the error occur

So untic auto hide then log off and log on if the error is gone then you should be able to reboot with no error as well.

We all need to slam ATI with this problem so they will fix the CCC in its next revision. They seem to be dragging their feet to me.

[daMaster]

HTSlider, can you explain how you determined the brightness/contrast settings for PowerDVD HD/BD to get video levels: The only software I have that ignores this is PowerDVD Ultra (running in Vista). To make PDVD Ultra output 16-235, change the PDVD advanced video brightness/contrast to +19/-5 (when playing an HD-DVD or Blu-ray).

I used those values, and it seems pretty dead-on, just wanted to know how you determined that.

[speedfrk]

Quick question- I can buy either a 2600XT or a 3450 for about the same price. Is there any significant differences between the 2 that should sway me? It is just for HTPC so 3d gaming performance doesn't matter. Thanks!

[daMaster]

Quick question- I can buy either a 2600XT or a 3450 for about the same price. Is there any significant differences between the 2 that should sway me? It is just for HTPC so 3d gaming performance doesn't matter. Thanks!

I have a 2600Pro and a 3470, both passive. The 2600Pro performs better but it's also more expensive and dissipates a lot more heat. The 3470 does the job and dissipates a lot less heat.

Go with the 3470. It can be had online from NCIX.com for about $55 CDN taxes in. Not sure about US prices.

[arfster]

34xx cards have less deinterlacing power than 26xx. Doesn't matter if all you play is films, of course.

[HT Slider]

HTSlider, can you explain how you determined the brightness/contrast settings for PowerDVD HD/BD to get video levels:

I used those values, and it seems pretty dead-on, just wanted to know how you determined that.

I used the Bluray and HD-DVD calibration discs mentioned earlier in this thread (downloadable from avsforums.com). My HDTV clips everything beyond 16-235 so it is easy to calibrate the output for this range.

Note that you only need to make this adjustment if your PC is trying to output RGB 0-255 and your HDTV requires RGB 16-235. This typically happens if your HDTV has a DVI port on it (no HDMI) or if you are driving your HDTV's HDMI port without using an ATI HDMI dongle (ie using a DVI to HDMI cable instead).

If your HDTV has an HDMI port on it and you use the ATI HDMI dongle and an HDMI cable, your video card will automatically output YCbCr, which already uses 16-235 grey levels (default PowerDVD settings of 0/0 work properly).

[LankyJ]

Hello, sorry, new here, but I'm trying to put together an HTPC and I'd just like to know if what I've got is going to work for me, or is it all a lost cause?

An older (June 2005) HP A1130N w/ Windows MCE
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
3 gb RAM
Diamond Radeon HD 2400Pro 256mb
LG Super Mlulti Blue combo Blu Ray / HD DVD Rom Drive
47" 1080p JVC LCD TV

I don't have my DVI->HDMI Cable yet so I haven't been able to try any 1080p, but 720p seems to work fine, I'm no videophile, but the picture looks nice on my JVC. However, I noticed that PowerDVD is still using about 40 - 55% of my CPU when playing HD DVD's. Am I not getting any hardware acceleration here, or is that kind of CPU usage to be expected?

If that's the case with 720p, I guess I've got no shot at all with working 1080p without buying a new case and starting from scratch, right?

Thanks for any help!

John...

[mushbert]

My guess is you're not getting acceleration, since most people tout getting as low as ~15% cpu usage. That being said I'm not sure how strong your particular processor is, on mine (XP2700+) usage is about twice what yours is. So I don't think I have any chance of playing 1080p stuff, but you might.


Also: I've been going to ask this for a while, but would someone (or several someones) be willing to contribute a few short clips from known DXVA-compatible videos? It would go a long way in troubleshooting if we were certain that what we're testing with should work. H.264 is my primary concern, but I'm sure others would appreciate WMV and VC1 samples as well.

[Joe Hendrix]

@Joe Hendrix, I didn't experience anything like that with my projector. You didn't state how you're wired, but I know that in 8.6 in the list tree on the left, you get three items for each display, info, setup, something else. On I think the second one, is a list of default supported resolutions for that device, and you can add/remove/disable the ones you don't want - for me, I removed everything but 720p 60Hz (standard). Not sure if 8.3 has that capability but I think that's what you'd want.


I have my 2600XT wired to my Pioneer 5050 via an DVI to HDMI connection.

There was an update through the Vista Update specifically for the 2600 so I went ahead and installed it, hoping that this update wouldn't cause the problem I've been having with the newer drivers which cause my monitor to change it's display setting back to 1080x1920 @ 30hz Interlaced (not sure of the exact dimensions, but it does switch my desktop back to 30hz interlaced) any time I turn off the TV and then turn it back on. Anyway, this new update showed the exact same problem as all of the other updates have done.

I'll rephrase my original post:

I will sometimes turn the TV off while listening to music through my HTPC via VMC. When I turn the TV back on, VMC no longer takes up the entire screen, and when I check out my settings in CCC, they have been reset to 1920x1280 with 30i.

The setting that I prefer has been 1280x768 with 60p, and then I'll do an underscan correction to fill the entire screen. This seems to be the ATI recommended method of filling the screen, rather than doing to custom setting.

I did try to remove all other display settings from CCC, but CCC only allowed me to delete a couple of the settings (must've been custom settings I had previously set on my own). It won't allow me to delete any of the factory settings. Maybe I'm in the wrong section to disable these other settings?

I've tried to set it to "force" the setting that I prefer, and it gave me a large warning about doing so. Yet, whenever I test it out by turning the TV off, and then back on again, it resets itself to 1080x1920 @ 30hz Interlaced. It's weird, because CCC recognizes the plasma correctly, so it should also know that it's a 720p plasma, so if anything it should go back to a default of 720p.

I've tried searching on the ATI forums, but they all seemed to be centered around gaming this, and gaming that.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

[HT Slider]

I have a HUGE problem with my HD2600XT and wonder if anyone might be able to help me out.

I've been using the HD2600XT in my HTPC (Intel P35 chipset) for about a year and it always worked very well. After replacing it with the 3870 (that works flawlessly) I decided to install the HD2600XT in my study PC.

For some reason the HD2600XT won't work at all in this PC and it seems to conflict the the on-board X200 graphics. My Nvidia 6800 on the other hand works flawlessly in this PC.

Here is what happens with the HD2600XT installed and the BIOS configured to initialize the PCIe card first:
- The system is incredibly slow and the CPU is always pegged at 100% for any process that tries to display on the screen (this is all the time, regardless of what driver, or no driver is installed). Background processes or tasks that are minimized drop down to reasonable CPU utilization levels. Also, very strangely, the CPU fan does not run at high speed, even though the task manager shows the CPU is running at 100%.
- If I install Catalyst 8.7, it installs the driver for the X200 for some reason and upon reboot the driver fails to load.
- If I let Windows Update automatically install a driver, the driver for the HD2600XT does install and there are no errors. The problem is the system is still so incredibly slow it is totally unusable (15 minutes to boot and virtually unresponsive). The CPU is always pegged at 100% for any task that is attempting to display anything (the larger the window, the higher the CPU utilization). Even task manager runs at 100% CPU when close to full screen and at around 50% when run at 1/4 screen.
- If I manually install the 8.7 driver using device manager, it does install the HD2600XT driver, but again the system is unusable.

When I reinstall the Nvidia 6800, the system immediately works flawlessly; even before I install the driver.

I've tried cleaning out the registry using Driver Cleaner and Driver Sweeper and it hasn't helped at all.

From what I can tell, the ATI HD2600XT is somehow conflicting with the X200 on-board. Note the problem is also much more severe than simply having no driver installed. It is almost like the PCIe bus itself is running at something like 1/50th of its correct speed when the HD2600XT is installed. Since this is a Gateway PC, there is a Gateway BIOS with very little control over anything.

Anyone seen anything like this before?

[genro]

I have a HUGE problem with my HD2600XT and wonder if anyone might be able to help me out.

I've been using the HD2600XT in my HTPC (Intel P35 chipset) for about a year and it always worked very well. After replacing it with the 3870 (that works flawlessly) I decided to install the HD2600XT in my study PC.

For some reason the HD2600XT won't work at all in this PC and it seems to conflict the the on-board X200 graphics. My Nvidia 6800 on the other hand works flawlessly in this PC.

Here is what happens with the HD2600XT installed and the BIOS configured to initialize the PCIe card first:
- The system is incredibly slow and the CPU is always pegged at 100% for any process that tries to display on the screen (this is all the time, regardless of what driver, or no driver is installed). Background processes or tasks that are minimized drop down to reasonable CPU utilization levels. Also, very strangely, the CPU fan does not run at high speed, even though the task manager shows the CPU is running at 100%.
- If I install Catalyst 8.7, it installs the driver for the X200 for some reason and upon reboot the driver fails to load.
- If I let Windows Update automatically install a driver, the driver for the HD2600XT does install and there are no errors. The problem is the system is still so incredibly slow it is totally unusable (15 minutes to boot and virtually unresponsive). The CPU is always pegged at 100% for any task that is attempting to display anything (the larger the window, the higher the CPU utilization). Even task manager runs at 100% CPU when close to full screen and at around 50% when run at 1/4 screen.
- If I manually install the 8.7 driver using device manager, it does install the HD2600XT driver, but again the system is unusable.

When I reinstall the Nvidia 6800, the system immediately works flawlessly; even before I install the driver.

I've tried cleaning out the registry using Driver Cleaner and Driver Sweeper and it hasn't helped at all.

From what I can tell, the ATI HD2600XT is somehow conflicting with the X200 on-board. Note the problem is also much more severe than simply having no driver installed. It is almost like the PCIe bus itself is running at something like 1/50th of its correct speed when the HD2600XT is installed. Since this is a Gateway PC, there is a Gateway BIOS with very little control over anything.

Anyone seen anything like this before?

Disable the x200 in Windows as well as in the Bios (if you can). Only then would I remove all the ATI drivers with drive cleaner etc as you did then try to reinstall.

[Regulator]

I have a HUGE problem with my HD2600XT and wonder if anyone might be able to help me out.

I've been using the HD2600XT in my HTPC (Intel P35 chipset) for about a year and it always worked very well. After replacing it with the 3870 (that works flawlessly) I decided to install the HD2600XT in my study PC.

For some reason the HD2600XT won't work at all in this PC and it seems to conflict the the on-board X200 graphics. My Nvidia 6800 on the other hand works flawlessly in this PC.

Here is what happens with the HD2600XT installed and the BIOS configured to initialize the PCIe card first:
- The system is incredibly slow and the CPU is always pegged at 100% for any process that tries to display on the screen (this is all the time, regardless of what driver, or no driver is installed). Background processes or tasks that are minimized drop down to reasonable CPU utilization levels. Also, very strangely, the CPU fan does not run at high speed, even though the task manager shows the CPU is running at 100%.
- If I install Catalyst 8.7, it installs the driver for the X200 for some reason and upon reboot the driver fails to load.
- If I let Windows Update automatically install a driver, the driver for the HD2600XT does install and there are no errors. The problem is the system is still so incredibly slow it is totally unusable (15 minutes to boot and virtually unresponsive). The CPU is always pegged at 100% for any task that is attempting to display anything (the larger the window, the higher the CPU utilization). Even task manager runs at 100% CPU when close to full screen and at around 50% when run at 1/4 screen.
- If I manually install the 8.7 driver using device manager, it does install the HD2600XT driver, but again the system is unusable.

When I reinstall the Nvidia 6800, the system immediately works flawlessly; even before I install the driver.

I've tried cleaning out the registry using Driver Cleaner and Driver Sweeper and it hasn't helped at all.

From what I can tell, the ATI HD2600XT is somehow conflicting with the X200 on-board. Note the problem is also much more severe than simply having no driver installed. It is almost like the PCIe bus itself is running at something like 1/50th of its correct speed when the HD2600XT is installed. Since this is a Gateway PC, there is a Gateway BIOS with very little control over anything.

Anyone seen anything like this before?

I have the EXACT same problem! I've tried everything I can think of. I even got it to boot normally once after installing xp drivers (my OS is vista). when it booted i tried installing the updated ati drivers with CCC and it's slow as hell again. I used driver cleaner and got rid of everything but still doesnt work and tried to reinstall using the same method but still doesnt work.

I originally had a 6600gt that worked flawlessly, then upgraded to the 8500gt (with HDMI out and spdif header) but kept getting that damn "Display Driver nvlddmkm stopped responding, has successfully recovered" error which doesnt have a fix as of yet. Google it--it's a very prevalent problem that has been in existence for over a year now with no resolution. Also, the system works well in xp with the 8500gt but the spdif connection to the video card really doesnt work that well.

After the 8500gt fiasco I popped in an old 7600gt I had lying around, and it worked well. Although I started to notice the picture in vmc looked grainy and I couldnt get any of the overscan features to work well in comparison to the 8500gt. I reinstalled the drivers and nothing would fix it or allow me to adjust the 3d settings. Then i read that the card wanted a 400W psu and mine was only 270W.

So now I've just ordered a new 400W PSU and am going to try out the 2600 once I'm able to install it. Will let you know how it works out.

[tetsuo55]

I installed the 8.8 catalyst beta and now h264 files will start stuttering/breaking up

seems like the problems with dxva keep increasing

[Regulator]

well i tried the xpress 200 chipset with the hd2600xt on xp and still nothing. so it is a hardware conflict. i looked in the bios and disabled anything i could for the igp, but still have the same problem.

if you google: xpress 200 2600xt vista
google (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=xpress+200+2600xt+vista&btnG=Search)

you get results from a guy that posted on multiple forums (including AVS (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=950209)) with the same problem and never got a solution. He even tried a more powerful PSU.

I tried for hours today to figure out how i got it to work that ONE time after using drivercleaner to remove ATI. Now that I think about it, after I used drivercleaner and installed the drivers for the hd2600xt, my file transfers within the primary harddrive slowed to a crawl. Probably because drivercleaner removed the chipset drivers. Damn.

Funny how these two ati products are incompatible but this chipset and my 7600gt are now working fine. D'oh!

[mushbert]

I have my 2600XT wired to my Pioneer 5050 via an DVI to HDMI connection.

Same cable here. And the data that it's outputting over DVI is the same as it would be putting through straight HDMI, so I don't know what the problem would be. My 6600GT recognizes my projector (as "Epson Projector"), but the 2600XT does not - it just shows "HDTV" as the output name. Which is ironic, because I haven't had any problems of the kind you're describing, when your card DOES recognize it. ;)

It won't allow me to delete any of the factory settings. Maybe I'm in the wrong section to disable these other settings?

I've tried to set it to "force" the setting that I prefer, and it gave me a large warning about doing so. Yet, whenever I test it out by turning the TV off, and then back on again, it resets itself to 1080x1920 @ 30hz Interlaced. It's weird, because CCC recognizes the plasma correctly, so it should also know that it's a 720p plasma, so if anything it should go back to a default of 720p.

Those sound like the right settings to me. As I don't have the card installed right now I'm at a loss to verify it, but maybe I couldn't remove the defaults either... maybe it just didn't matter because it didn't change the res on me. There are three things that come to mind: you find out where CCC gets/stores those output configurations - hopefully is in the registry - and change them. If not, the second option would be to deal with it from the TV perspective... i.e. does that model have any settings that control what resolutions it will accept? Have you searched for the model number in reference to resolution problems? Lastly, I think there are a few posts on this forum about hacking the ID strings that devices use to identify themselves and their capabilities, but that would probably be a last resort due to the complexity if no one's done it with that TV before.

[karrih]

Anyone seen anything like this before?

This is one possible solution. Go to 'Device Manager' -> View -> 'Device by Connection' -> 'PCI standard PCI to PCI bridge' and 'Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for HD audio'. Disabling it helped in my case.

[AlexP]

Some kind soul posted a complete script of his success story with XP/AGP/2400 just before 8 days worth of posts disappeared for good.

Any chance for a re-post or recreation of the steps?

Cheers

[Regulator]

This is one possible solution. Go to 'Device Manager' -> View -> 'Device by Connection' -> 'PCI standard PCI to PCI bridge' and 'Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for HD audio'. Disabling it helped in my case.

You just made my day.

It's now working using my old psu nonetheless.

I love you.

Unfortunately, audio over hdmi become disabled. Doh. Where you ever able to get the audio off the 2600 to work afterwards?

[flhthemi]

Since v8.1 every time Windows boots up I get a window that says MMLoadDRV.exe crashed. It's a file in Program Files(x86)\ATI Technologies. I recently reloaded Vista for other reasons but it continues. Is anybody else seeing this?
HD2600PRO, Vista64, PCI-E.

If any of you are still having this problem there is a work around. I bought a brand new Toshiba P305-S8842 laptop and as soon as I changed the setting for the Windows task bar to auto hide I started getting the error at bootup or if I logged off and logged back on. The file MMLOADDRV.EXE. as you might not already know, is part of ATI's CCC and this bug needs to be fixed. Turn off auto hide or via msconfig dont let the CCC load.

[AlexP]

Ok - here's one unsuccessful report from the battlefield - looking for ideas!

System: 2400 Pro AGP, P4 3.4, XP SP3

Installation sequence:
1. Installed the new card
2. removed old ATI drivers with Control Panel
3. Installed 8.4 Hotfix (only)
4. CCC indicates a file error after restart and is basically inaccessible (got the same problem ever since my previous 9150 card)
3a. Applied 0.14 registry mods - all but the 2 dual-mon lines.
4. Installed the DirectX 9.0c August '08 version
5. Reinstalled K-Lite 4.14 - default with no player; no association changes

Cyberlink 7 and CoreAVC were present even before the new card.

Results:
DXVA checker shows all items are fine up to 1080p - except ModelVMW8_PostProc and ModelVMW9_Post Proc

Trying to open MKV x264 files (in both 720p and 1080p) in MPC-HC results in audio only when both CoreAVC and PDVD7 filters are blocked. For some reason the internal filter doesn't work!

When PDVD7 filter is not blocked - it works but without HA

Ideas?

[HT Slider]

I have the EXACT same problem! I've tried everything I can think of. I even got it to boot normally once after installing xp drivers (my OS is vista). when it booted i tried installing the updated ati drivers with CCC and it's slow as hell again. I used driver cleaner and got rid of everything but still doesnt work and tried to reinstall using the same method but still doesnt work.

I originally had a 6600gt that worked flawlessly, then upgraded to the 8500gt (with HDMI out and spdif header) but kept getting that damn "Display Driver nvlddmkm stopped responding, has successfully recovered" error which doesnt have a fix as of yet. Google it--it's a very prevalent problem that has been in existence for over a year now with no resolution. Also, the system works well in xp with the 8500gt but the spdif connection to the video card really doesnt work that well.

After the 8500gt fiasco I popped in an old 7600gt I had lying around, and it worked well. Although I started to notice the picture in vmc looked grainy and I couldnt get any of the overscan features to work well in comparison to the 8500gt. I reinstalled the drivers and nothing would fix it or allow me to adjust the 3d settings. Then i read that the card wanted a 400W psu and mine was only 270W.

So now I've just ordered a new 400W PSU and am going to try out the 2600 once I'm able to install it. Will let you know how it works out.

Talk about a coincidence...

I too have an Nvidia 8500GT and it too keeps failing with the same error. Note that the 8500GT has this same issue in my main HTPC too, so it's troubles have nothing to do with the ATI chipset (the HTPC has an Intel P35 chipset). Also the HD2600XT works flawlessly in the HTPC, so the trouble with that card are specific to the combination of the ATI chipset and the ATI HD2600XT.

I upgraded to a 600W PSU in my study PC and the HD2600XT has the issue with this PSU so clearly it isn't a PSU issue. Also, the HD2600XT uses less power than the Nvidia 6800 and the 6800 works flawlessly.

I have a support request logged with ATI about this issue and so far they keep over and over telling me the problem is that no driver is installed (even though when I manually install the driver it installs fine and there are no errors). Hopefully they will soon escalate the request to someone who can dig into the issue better (so far the same person is responding and has been for almost 2 weeks).

As far as I'm concerned, the HD2600XT issue appears to be some sort of PCIe bus problem when used with this ATI chipset. The fact the any process that attempts to display anything on the screen runs at 100% CPU utilization, yet the CPU fan doesn't kick in tells me there is some other bottleneck with the video communication path (and with this card it is a PCIe bus that is in use).

The question is what is causing the PCIe bus issue and is there a solution? I also wonder if the bus issue is somehow caused by a conflict between the ATI X200 graphics and the ATI HD2600XT card, or if it is an issue between the ATI RS480M chipset and the ATI HD2600XT card.

I'll let you know if ATI finds a solution. I'd really like to be able to watch HD 1080i/1080p content on this PC and the Nvidia 6800 combined with the AMD 64 3400+ processor can't handle anything over 720p without pegging the CPU (and running the CPU cooling fan at LOUD speeds). If I can get the HD2600XT working, it should handle all HD content fine.

[HT Slider]

This is one possible solution. Go to 'Device Manager' -> View -> 'Device by Connection' -> 'PCI standard PCI to PCI bridge' and 'Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for HD audio'. Disabling it helped in my case.

You just made my day.

It's now working using my old psu nonetheless.

I love you.

Unfortunately, audio over hdmi become disabled. Doh. Where you ever able to get the audio off the 2600 to work afterwards?
I missed this post.

Are there any other side effects by disabling these devices?

I don't mind loosing the HDMI audio (since I won't be using it), but disabling the PCI bus driver sounds like a bad idea...

[HT Slider]

Disable the x200 in Windows as well as in the Bios (if you can). Only then would I remove all the ATI drivers with drive cleaner etc as you did then try to reinstall.

That is exactly what I tried first (the BIOS was already configured to initialize the PCIe card first from when I installed the Nvidia PCIe card).

Then I tried simply uninstalling the Nvidia driver and installing the ATI driver - no go. Then I got more aggressive at using ATI uninstall tools, then registry cleaners, then manually searching the registry for leftovers (there were actually 3 Nvidia services the were left trying to start - but by uninstalling the driver the service executables were deleted so silent errors were showing up in the event logs).

I then tried manually installing the drivers, etc. Manually installing the drivers did work, but the system remained non-functional.

Personally I never use driver cleaners nor registry cleaners. I'm convinced they typically create more trouble than they solve (but I do resort to them when things go wrong).

[HT Slider]

This is one possible solution. Go to 'Device Manager' -> View -> 'Device by Connection' -> 'PCI standard PCI to PCI bridge' and 'Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for HD audio'. Disabling it helped in my case.

You just made my day.

It's now working using my old psu nonetheless.

I love you.

Unfortunately, audio over hdmi become disabled. Doh. Where you ever able to get the audio off the 2600 to work afterwards?

Thinking that there seemed to be a problem with the chipset driver, I searched and searched, trying to find one. Eventually I found a discussion talking about where to find the XP Northbridge and Southbridge drivers for ATI chipsets.

It turns out that although ATI doesn't have it under chipset drivers, they do apparently have both a Northbridge and Southbridge chipset driver for the Xpress 200 chipset.

To get the Northbridge driver, you apparently need to install the ATI on-board video driver for the Xpress 200 from the ATI Xpress 200 on-board video driver page.

To get the Southbridge driver, you need to install the ATI southbridge driver, found at the ATI Xpress 200 on-board video web page (same page as the Xpress 200 video driver).

Both of these can be found here:

For Vista:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=vista32/integrated-vista32

For XP:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/integratedip-xp

I don't know if this will work (yet), but my current theory is to:


Uninstall the current Nvidia drivers and then use Driver Sweeper to remove the lingering services (since I know these don't get removed).
Reboot and while the standard VGA driver is installed, install the Xpress200/RS480 Southbridge driver (this apparently includes an updated ATI version of the "standard PCI to PCI bridge" driver). The only reason to do this afterwards is I don't want to run Driver Sweeper once this is installed.
Shut down and physically remove the Nvidia video card.
Reboot and configure the BIOS to use the integrated graphics.
In Vista, install the Xpress 200/Northbridge driver. At this point, hopefully Vista will be up and running properly with ATI hardware driven by current ATI drivers.
Shut down and physically install the HD 2600XT video card (without uninstalling the ATI drivers).
Reboot and configure the BIOS to use the PCIe card.
Install the HD 2600XT video driver.
If we are lucky, we'll have a functional system at this point...


Note that I don't know for certain we actually need to install the Xpress 200/Northbridge driver. It is possible that the regular ATI HD2600XT driver includes the RS480 Northbridge driver (but I didn't see it mentioned in the package contents on the ATI download site).

[Regulator]

Thinking that there seemed to be a problem with the chipset driver, I searched and searched, trying to find one. Eventually I found a discussion talking about where to find the XP Northbridge and Southbridge drivers for ATI chipsets.

It turns out that although ATI doesn't have it under chipset drivers, they do apparently have both a Northbridge and Southbridge chipset driver for the Xpress 200 chipset.

To get the Northbridge driver, you apparently need to install the ATI on-board video driver for the Xpress 200 from the ATI Xpress 200 on-board video driver page.

To get the Southbridge driver, you need to install the ATI southbridge driver, found at the ATI Xpress 200 on-board video web page (same page as the Xpress 200 video driver).

Both of these can be found here:

For Vista:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=vista32/integrated-vista32

For XP:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/integratedip-xp

I don't know if this will work (yet), but my current theory is to:


Uninstall the current Nvidia drivers and then use Driver Sweeper to remove the lingering services (since I know these don't get removed).
Reboot and while the standard VGA driver is installed, install the Xpress200/RS480 Southbridge driver (this apparently includes an updated ATI version of the "standard PCI to PCI bridge" driver). The only reason to do this afterwards is I don't want to run Driver Sweeper once this is installed.
Shut down and physically remove the Nvidia video card.
Reboot and configure the BIOS to use the integrated graphics.
In Vista, install the Xpress 200/Northbridge driver. At this point, hopefully Vista will be up and running properly with ATI hardware driven by current ATI drivers.
Shut down and physically install the HD 2600XT video card (without uninstalling the ATI drivers).
Reboot and configure the BIOS to use the PCIe card.
Install the HD 2600XT video driver.
If we are lucky, we'll have a functional system at this point...


Note that I don't know for certain we actually need to install the Xpress 200/Northbridge driver. It is possible that the regular ATI HD2600XT driver includes the RS480 Northbridge driver (but I didn't see it mentioned in the package contents on the ATI download site).

I've tried installing the ati hdmi drivers off of the realtek website but does not recognize anything during install, with or without the hd audio device enabled.

[Regulator]

I missed this post.

Are there any other side effects by disabling these devices?

I don't mind loosing the HDMI audio (since I won't be using it), but disabling the PCI bus driver sounds like a bad idea...
I believe you are only disabling windows from trying to control the audio controller on the card itself. Otherwise the card works perfectly with all it's features (except audio of course).

[HT Slider]

I believe you are only disabling windows from trying to control the audio controller on the card itself. Otherwise the card works perfectly with all it's features (except audio of course).

Bad news. My attempts to install the missing Southbridge ATI driver did not work. Surprisingly the ATI "Southbridge" download doesn't include a southbridge driver for the X200/RS480 at all. Instead, it includes a Northbridge PCIe driver that replaces the default Microsoft driver.

Installing the ATI Northbridge PCIe driver didn't make any difference at all and the system was still bogged right down all the time (unusable).